CAIRO: A conflict between Marsah Matrouh governorate and the Urban Communities Authority about who has the authority to buy and sell public land in El Alameen area is the main reason behind the Marina church dispute, Priest Anglos Ishaq told Daily News Egypt. Ishaq, priest of Marina Church, said that "the conflict is not about religion or Christianity, it is a conflict between the Ministry of Housing and the Marsah Matrouh governorate. The church had bought the land on which the existing Marina Church was built from the Urban Communities Authority affiliated to the Ministry of Housing, Ishaq explained. But when the church approached the Urban Communities Authority to buy another piece of land, the Marsah Matrouh governor claimed that the land falls under the jurisdiction of the governorate which possessed the right to sell it. General Mohamed Al-Shahat, governor of Marsah Matrouh told the press that according to by-law No. 34 of 1979 regulating local administration, the governorate was the sole authority in charge of land within its cordon. Ishaq then publicized documents that prove that the church bought the land from the Urban Communities Authority, which, he insists, has the legal power to sell. The documents, published in Al-Masry Al-Youm on Aug. 21, included all the legal papers dating back to 2002 and contain the legal steps that the church had taken in the past five years to buy the disputed land; the most significant being an Oct. 16, 2006 agreement sent by the Urban Communities Authority to the Church approving the sale. Another document, dated March 2007, was the Ministry of Defense s permission to sell the land to the church. Ishaq further indicated that Al-Shahat said that that the border of the Marsah Matrouh governorate's jurisdiction ends on kilometer 106 along the Marsah Matrouh highway. This means that Matrouh has no authority over the disputed land which lies on kilometer 106.9, he says. Engineer Ahmed Sayed Ahmed, head of the department that runs the Urban Communities Authority and president of the summer resorts in Al-Alameen, told Daily News Egypt that the Urban Communities Authority has indeed sold the land to the church. He confirmed that all the documents are now with the legal consultant of the Minister of Housing. But engineer Mohammed Sherif, who works in the investment department at the governorate of Marsah Matrouh, insisted to Daily News Egypt that the area from Wadi El Natroun to El Alameen is the property of the Marsah Matrouh governorate and not of the Urban Communities Authority. However, Ahmed said that this problem is not the result of a disagreement between the church and Marsah Matrouh governorate or between the church and the Ministry of Housing. it is a conflict over which side has the authority to buy and sell land in that area; the Marsah Matrouh governorate or the ministry. He believes the problem will be resolved within two days, but declined to comment on how it will be resloved. Although the press reported that President Hosni Mubarak had decreed that the disputed land will go to the church, Ishaq said in a previous interview that the land is not officially owned by the church yet. The handover is pending a government committee which had not yet convened. The dispute between the church and the Marsah Matrouh governorate involved protests and clashes between some hundred Copts and security forces that resulted in injuries and the detainment of 11 Copts for one day. The original conflict was over a 5,000-square meter piece of land that the church had bought five years ago and acquired a license to build a church on, but which was revoked by the Marsah Matrouh governorate. According to Ishaq, the church had paid 25 percent of the price of the land when, all of a sudden, they discovered that 4,000 square meters were re-sold by the Marsah Matrouh governorate to a tourism development company. The remaining 1,000 square meters were allocated to the Marina Shores protection unit.
